The Application Of Tempo Calculation For Musicological Purposes

Abstract

Beat tracking systems capture time positions of beats within digital recordings. Theyare used, for example, in streaming portals, but applications in the musicological analysis are oftenneglected. In this article, two different methods of beat tracking systems are tested—conventionaland the state-of-the-art—on the specific motif of a string quartet music, which is one of the mostcomplex tasks for beat detectors in general. The aim here is to determine which system is better formusicology purposes. This often involves determining not only the position of individual beats andestimating the tempo but also the accuracy of determining their number. Evaluation analysis maybe suitable for comparing the accuracy of detectors, but may not necessarily reflect the requirementsof musicological analysis. The results of selected detectors show that a system based on a recurrentneural network seems to be the most suitable.